Grace paced up and down the gym floor. She smiled sweetly when she saw a business opportunity but lateness unsettled her and so she was jumpy. It didn’t fit. Like the weights being out of place, or clients lacing their trainers wrongly.
Loud, pumping music distracted her, but she still watched the clock. She didn’t like to start sessions behind schedule. It ruined her plans. She walked past people plugged into their phones. Grace had never known gyms before headphones, but she imagined them to have been more sociable places. They made new members harder to connect with. That’s why she’d started her YouTube channel.
Connection is the basis of mental health, she’d said into the camera tonight, after she’d grabbed a nut bar for her lunch because there was no point cooking for one.
She looked at her watch again and tried to see the missed appointment as an opportunity, perhaps, but at what point did one assume they weren’t coming at all? Twenty minutes? Thirty? She could sit and plan a new video, using gym equipment. Viewers loved props. It made her look professional, and that made people trust what she said.
Monika had been late before. She was the kind of woman who came and went as she pleased. Grace watched the main door, in between putting weights back in their place and picking up discarded mats. She was sure that Monika would have a good reason, but tardiness got under her skin. It put her out of kilter and disturbed the natural order of things that kept her routine manageable. A tiny blip that threw her off course could have disastrous consequences. But that didn’t seem to concern women like Monika, who acted like she took everyone for granted. That’s what money did to people and Grace was determined it wouldn’t happen to her.
It crossed her mind that maybe Monika’s husband had something to do with it. Grace heard snippets of her clients’ lives during sessions and knew enough about Tony Thorpe. Once, she’d bumped into Monika leaving the gym, and she’d caught a glimpse of him in his Aston Martin as Monika climbed in. Grace had seen them argue, and she remembered thinking that he looked like her father. Grace had also seen the way men looked at Monika, but knew the woman preferred the size of a man’s wallet to anything else.
She glanced at the door again and tutted. Hard physical graft was elusive for many, perhaps Monika simply couldn’t be bothered. But it was unlike her. She walked around the gym floor one more time and acknowledged familiar faces. It was a quarter past the hour, and she decided to call her client. She went to the PT office and logged on to the computer, to check if Monika had swiped her gym card. She hadn’t. So she called her mobile phone. It went unanswered. So she tried the landline listed, expecting no one to answer, but it was picked up, and a man spoke.
‘Hello, who is this?’ she asked politely.
‘Who is this?’ he replied sternly.
‘Sorry, maybe I’ve got the wrong number? Is this Monika Thorpe’s house?’
‘Yes, this is her husband, who wants to know?’
His tone made her heart beat faster. Suddenly she found herself in an awkward situation that she hadn’t planned for, and it wasn’t pleasant. She felt caught, and guilty for prying, and she pictured the face of the man who’d picked up Monika in the carpark.
‘Oh, erm, I’m sorry to disturb you. Gosh, it’s just…’ Grace was acutely aware that she might be causing a fuss. She had no idea where Monika might be but what if she was wading into some marital argument? She was gripped by disloyalty. Monika might be seeing another man.
She explained who she was.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
The words dripped through the telephone like syrup.
He’s just a man.
‘Grace, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. Her voice shook.
‘Monika isn’t here. In fact, she’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
In panic, she replaced the receiver. Her hands tremored but the rest of her body didn’t move. She felt the skin on her chest heat up. Her pulse throbbed and the room swayed. Her head felt loose and empty. She slid off the chair and sat on the floor, aware that somebody else had come into the tiny airless office. Ignacio bent over her and touched her arm. She recoiled from the contact and moved an inch away from him so she couldn’t smell his body. Visions of a man on top of her – sweaty from his workout; crushing the wind out of her with his bulk – filled her head and she closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the fact that Monika’s husband told her she was simply ‘gone’.
She was vaguely aware of a small group of other PTs gathering around her, and Ignacio keeping them back and asking them to give her space. She heard voices buzzing about her head and tried to focus on a chart on the wall with stars on it. People asked if she was okay, but all at once, and their voices merged into an annoying hum. She looked at them blankly.
‘Grace? Who was on the phone?’ Ignacio asked. She realised that she still gripped the receiver in her hand, and she hadn’t replaced it after all.
She looked at Ignacio. His arm fully cradled her and a creeping feeling started in her toes and worked its way up through her body until she tensed and froze. He rubbed her back and she looked at him in horror. He was comforting her, thinking her terrified by what news she’d heard, but how could he possibly know what she was really feeling? He couldn’t. Her immobility just made him want to console her even more. The warmer she felt his hand, the closer she looked into his eyes, the more she wanted to scream and retch, and lash out all at once. She was transported back to the studio – his home studio – when he’d come up behind her after their boxing session. Vincent had been a client for months, and she’d trusted him.
She jumped and Ignacio recoiled. His purity of soul was what she’d once seen in Vincent. She’d trusted everybody. Inner voices taunted her and made her feel scummy and rubbish. People finally stood back and looked at her oddly, like the police had. Like everybody had. She felt hands on her body and she knew that she had to get out of there.
Vincent’s face clanged against the voice of the Crown Court judge. The defence barrister. ‘Did you encourage the defendant?’
She struggled to her feet and fled, out of the door, heading for the staff toilet. She heard footsteps close behind her. She made it to the toilet in time to lift the lid, before the puke came out of her in heaves.
At first, it was lumpy and she recognised the smell of banana and spotted bulky bits of undigested porridge. Then it slowed and became liquid, hurting her stomach as it tensed and relaxed. She was done. She wiped her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes, recognising the familiar smell of shame.
She slid onto the floor and her chest rose and fell with the exertion. She sat, panting, trying to understand what had just happened. It had been spontaneous and out of her control; she hadn’t even had to use her fingers to prompt the purge. But, instead of feeling empty, her body felt the opposite: satiated and full, as if replenished. She reached over to flush the handle and felt a rising tide of purification. She’d ejaculated her fear. It felt good, and she felt energised.
She stood up slowly, turning to the door, and left the cubicle. At the sink, she washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face. By the time she left the room, and found Ignacio waiting for her outside, she was composed and calm. She smiled at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Hey, don’t be sorry. Are you okay? What happened?’
‘Gosh, I really don’t know. It’s just a client… I… he said she’s gone.’
‘Who said?’
‘Her husband.’
‘Gone where?’
She told him about the phone call, and he placed his hand on her shoulder tenderly. It repulsed her and she was reminded of the galling human habit of imposing oneself upon another’s personal space without invite. She moved away. But she was no longer scared. She’d sanitised herself and for a moment she felt elation and joy.
They walked back to the gym floor together and another PT held out her mobile phone for her, which she’d dropped when she ran to the toilet. It was ringing. She looked at it strangely, as if it wasn’t hers. Then she answered.
It was the police.